Another Black Legionnaire here. *waves*

Not at all. Even Abaddon doesn't hate Horus - he held phenomenal respect for Horus, and continues to respect (to an arguably lesser extent) the other Primarchs. But on the other hand, Abaddon personally considers Horus to have been weak and foolish - where he could have achieved complete victory, he shied away at the end. And in not stepping up to take his place during the Battle of Terra, and in becoming Daemon Princes and abandoning the war on the Imperium, ultimately all of the other surviving traitor Primarchs failed their sons.

Abaddon's entire reason for being is to put right that failure, and wrest control of humanity away from the dying Emperor and the stagnant Imperium. The call to pick up the banners and resume the war against the Imperium, and to do so not simply to install a different Primarch in the Emperor's place, but as part of a new brotherhood of Space Marines sworn to each other and this cause rather than defined purely by the bloodlines of their fathers, is the reason that the Black Legion appealed to so many of the chaos marines.

Part of the reason that Abaddon insisted on black as the colour of the legion was out of respect and mourning for Horus and his dream for a united humanity, as well as being a constant reminder of the shame of the traitor marines in failing to secure victory for themselves. Retaining the Eye of Horus is another mixed message; again, partly a mark of respect to Horus as the first Warmaster of Chaos, and partly because it is a symbol that was once called the Eye of Terra, and was worn by those who claimed the right to shape humanity's destiny - which is exactly what the Black Legion aim to do themselves.

What Abaddon despises are those who worship Horus as if he had been a flawless leader, or a god, or those who abandon their responsibility to the Long War by clinging to his memory. Hence his tendency to stamp on the thrice cursed traitors of the Sons of Horus who fled into the far reaches of the eye rather than join the Black Legion when it was first formed...although his anger is directed at the folly of their action, rather than at the marines themselves. Many have since been allowed to join the Black Legion.

It's a major spoiler so I won't say where but....

'You are not my father.' - Abaddon to Horus Luprical.

For clarity:

"I am not your son." - Abaddon to a clone of Horus Lupercal.


Context is everything.

``````````

Is it? Because everything points to that meaning one thing and not the other.

Could there be nuance to it? Certainly, it's not by default 'I hate you Dad!' but to think it means it has respect for Horus is going too far. Horus was the Sacrificed King, the failure, the one who lost.

"Horus was weak, Horus was a fool, Horus had the galaxy in the palm of his hand and let it slip away." That's not respectful, not anymore at least.

The way that Abaddon has come to view Horus' failure is one of his most defining characteristics, and ultimately the reason we have the Black Legion. But I don't believe it's as simple to say that his disgust for Horus' moment of weakness is the same as utter contempt for Horus in his entirity. I don't think Abaddon has ever been that one dimensional.

So that the less obsessive followers of Black Legion lore have a cat in hell's chance of following this discussion, some background...

"Abaddon was arguably more devoted to Horus than any of the other Sons of Horus, and perhaps suffered the most as a result of Horus' death. He swore vengeance on the Emperor, and set about ensuring that the legion would survive to enact it. After reaching the Eye, he became furious with the legions' respective collapses into infighting and took himself off into exile. He returned shortly after the Emperor's Children had stormed the fort of Lupercalios and stolen Horus' body from Maeleum, the world the Sons of Horus had claimed in the Eye.

"The turning point for Abaddon was sitting in the Tomb of Horus on Maeleum, when the remaining captains of the legion were attacking each other in rage in the wake of their defeat. He looked at the glorifications on the walls of Horus' victories and became more and more furious at the knowledge that all around him, Horus' legion was ripping itself to pieces in the wake of another major defeat. It was then that he saw that it was the Warmaster's failure which had led the legion here, condemening themselves to extinction in the blood-soaked ruins of Maeleum. After summarily executing the captains and taking control, he commanded the legion to join him in cleansing the clones of Horus, extinguishing all trace of their former Primarch that they could finally escape his shadow."*

Seems like a clear-cut shift towards Horus-hating at first, but...

"While other Traitor legionnaires lost themselves in the madness and excess of the Warp, Abaddon never forgot the defeat of Horus and the debt of vengeance he owed the Emperor. It was this thirst for revenge that would sustain him over the long centuries and eventually motivate him to muster the Traitor Legions for war once more."**

"When Abaddon took control of the Sons of Horus he set about making a break with their previous history. Firstly, he cast off the name of their Primarch, rechristening the Sons of Horus as the Black Legion, so that they could move beyond the failures of the Heresy and repair their tarnished reputation. While he kept the image of the Eye of Horus as the sole reminder of their origins, he ordered his warriors to paint their armour black and strike all other symbols of their past allegiances. This was to serve as both a mark of their shame and their devotion. An ancient symbol of mourning, the black honoured their dead Primarch without speaking his name. Equally, it ensured that the former Sons of Horus would never forget that their Primarch had failed, and his failure must be drowned in the blood of his foes."**

Abaddon was angry at Horus' failure, not at the existence of Horus himself. He saw that Horus had failed the legions but, also, that the legions had failed themselves. The shame of the Black Legion is not the shame of following someone who was defeated, but the failure to prevent that defeat despite Horus' moment of weakness.

Even the definitive Abaddon quote, "Horus was weak, Horus was a fool. Horus held the galaxy in the palm of his hand and let it slip away" focuses on the single moment that Horus wavered in his determination, failed, and condemned the legions to 10,000 years in hell. Abaddon is determined to ensure he does not make the same mistake, and continues to despise weakness anywhere he sees it.

He also realised that the Sons of Horus, and the other legions, could not move on from their defeat while they continued to worship or glorify the deeds and memories of their failed fathers over all else. His solution was to forcibly break them away from that path, push them into finally admitting and accepting the shame of their own part in that failure, and freed of their misguided loyalties from the past, offer them a new future as brothers united together by common cause rather than bloodline, whose overriding aim was to expunge the shame of their failure by finally achieving what Horus had failed to do, ending the Emperor's rule over humanity.

That was never going to happen with Fabius Bile busy trying to clone all of the Primarchs; therefore the clones had to die. Not because they reminded Abaddon of a hated father, but because the clone Primarchs were setting the legions up to repeat their past failures. The Primarchs had proven to be incapable of following through on what was required to defeat the Emperor, and so were obstacles on the path towards victory that needed to be removed. It was a primarily strategic rather than emotional decision.

My reading of the lore has always been that Abaddon hated the fact that his father failed, and the consequences that has had on him, on the legions, and on humanity. Not that he hated Horus himself. Abaddon has never encouraged the legions to forget Horus as an usurper might if they were worried about their own legitimacy; instead, he has encouraged them to wear a physical reminder that Horus' failure was what had defined them, and that they should never forget this.

To honour Horus' position as the First Warmaster, to recognise his strengths as well as his failings, to understand what can be learned from him...to the best of my knowledge, these are things the Warmaster has never punished.

But to worship him, to consider him the best of the traitor legions, to disregard the consequences of his weakness, or to use his failure as an excuse to abandon the Long War...these are things which are met with disgust. "Defeat masquerading as defiance", I believe is the phrase Abaddon has used to describe this.

If the astartes in question does not allow that view to be challenged, and subsequently embrace the relevation of the Black Legion, they tend to end up as a smoking, charred corpse...just like all of the other obstacles on Abaddon's path towards victory.

Because there can be no moments of weakness. If there are, then we have learned nothing at all.


*Paraphrased from the early sections of the Black Legion supplement. Some parts are direct quotes. Talon of Horus has played around with the exact details of this story.

**Taken directly from the Black Legion supplement

The problem however is not the bit about hating Horus, I agree that Abaddon doesn't hate Horus, but he certainly doesn't respect him because Horus was after all a failure.

Sorry I can't give you larger responses as this seems rather piddly in comparison but I don't really have much more to say on the matter then what i'v shown or what you've already covered, the quotes in question lead me to believe that Abaddon has stopped viewing Horus as his father. There are lessons to be learned from him, from all the Primarchs, but Luprical has ceased becoming part of that identity.

Which is why I think the comment towards his clone means one thing, killing that clone was symbolically killing his past and moving towards the future.

The Black Legion rightly sees the killing of the Emperor as the most expedient way of ending the Imperial Cult which has stifled humankind's progress for too long.

Unlike most other Chaos forces, the Black Legion does care about humanity. It shows its compassion with bolt-holes in the brains of zealots; its selfless love by drenching its hands in the blood of innocents; its devotion to the cause by consorting with the darkest powers in the universe to achieve its aims... all pains they welcome for the ultimate freedom of humanity. And maybe to settle a grudge or two.

It is easy to understand Abaddon's fixation with purging weakness; Horus was a pinnacle of human power, but was created in such a way that he was unable to strike down the Emperor. In each and every Imperial zealot there is a piece of that weakness, be they humble agri-worlders, or the Primarchs themselves. Every time they invoke his name they bring back the moment that painfully divided humanity, and remind the Legion of their Primarch's weakest moment.

Had the Emperor been slain, the Legion believes the story of humankind would be far less grimdark than it currently is; and they know full well of their own responsibility in the pain that all their people share. No wonder they are so angry and obsessed with shame; they bear a heavy weight on their shoulders. Their twisted road to redemption is filled with the further death and suffering of the very thing they would seek to protect and save.

It's a hard choice...Black Legion was my first exposure to Chaos and so far I've been wearing the trappings...but at the same times there is so much I love about the Alpha Legion and Word Bearers it's not so clear cut what I will rep come launch when our characters are a bit more permanent. Still, the Long War always awaits, even for those not wearing the black.